The present invention relates to a plate inserting apparatus for inserting a new plate in the plate clamp device of a plate cylinder.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 7-75885 (reference 1) discloses a plate inserting apparatus of this type. The apparatus disclosed in reference 1 has a plate magazine supported to be movable between an inserting position for inserting a new plate into the plate clamp device of a plate cylinder and a wait position, a conveyor belt provided in the plate magazine to feed out the new plate into a plate fixing unit, and a driver for driving the conveyor belt. When the plate magazine is located at the inserting position, the conveyor belt is driven by the driver. As a driving belt travels, the new plate is fed out from the plate magazine into the plate clamp device of the plate cylinder, and is mounted on the plate cylinder.
In the conventional plate inserting apparatus described above, since the new plate is fed out into a plate fixing device by the travel of the conveyor belt, the driver for driving the conveyor belt to travel is required. As the driver is large and heavy, a rotational driving unit for rotating the plate magazine also becomes large, and the entire apparatus becomes large and complicated.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a compact plate inserting apparatus.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a simplified plate inserting apparatus.
In order to achieve the above objects, according to the present invention, there is provided a plate inserting apparatus comprising plate holding means for holding a plate to which an elastic restoration force is applied, and releasing means for releasing the plate held by the plate holding means, wherein the plate released by the releasing means is inserted into a plate fixing unit provided in a plate cylinder by the elastic restoration force thereof.